Offering new revelations about the CIA's role in shutting down military intelligence penetration of al-Qaeda, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer joins a growing list of government officials accusing former CIA director George Tenet of misleading federal investigators and sharing some degree of blame for the 9/11 attacks.

In the wake of the devastating African embassy bombings of 1998, which left more than 200 dead, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) - responsible for the Pentagon's secret commando units - brought together specialists from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to begin mapping the al-Qaeda network. Based in the Information Dominance Center - also referred to as Land Information Warfare Activity, or LIWA - at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the team's advanced data-mining software found connections between known terrorists and subjects with matching profiles. This highly classified project was code-named Able Danger.

The project first came to public attention in June 2005, nearly one year after the 9/11 Commission released its report, when Congressman Curt Weldon gave a special orders speech on the floor of the House of Representatives. Following attacks on Weldon's credibility, five Pentagon whistleblowers came forward to back up his claims, including Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a CIA-trained senior intelligence operations officer, Bronze Star Medal recipient and reserve Army lieutenant colonel with more than 22 years in the intelligence community.

Shaffer now claims the media's focus on the data-collection aspect of Able Danger missed the point. "Data mining kind of became, to use a film term, the MacGuffin," says Shaffer, a reference to a narrative device - often used in Alfred Hitchcock movies - which drives the plot while ultimately having no relevance to it. "That was the throwaway they wanted people to focus on. The overall project was something that covered the entire command structure of [SOCOM]. The project was put together to give the national command authority options."

In other words, the collecting of information about al-Qaeda's cell structures was only meant to be a first step in a larger action to be taken using the data. "It wasn't simply an experiment. My actual assignment wasn't Able Danger. I could never testify to the actual operational objectives assigned to me and my unit for the purposes of Able Danger." The Able Danger project, portrayed in most media reports as a mere data-mining exercise, was in fact fully integrated into a larger military effort to target and disrupt al-Qaeda. Its actual capabilities and objectives remain classified.

Shaffer contends that the most damning revelations lie in that still-classified aspect of the project, the operational side. Asked what the next step was to be against the so-called Brooklyn cell identified by Able Danger which he says included five of the 9/11 hijackers, Shaffer responded, "I can't talk about that."

At the center of the military's intended action was a long-term asset recruited by DIA years before Able Danger, a retired Afghan general who had direct access to al-Qaeda activities in Afghanistan. "We had a clear access point to al-Qaeda we were using for our operational purposes," says Shaffer. "The asset was a separate operation we were going to use for access. We were going to use still-classified capabilities." That all changed when CIA got involved.

SandRider wrote:conspiracy ?? you better able to bak that up w/someYouVideos , or somthing ...

Eyes High Sunk the Titanic!!!

I don't think the author should make the reader do that much work - Kevin J. AndersonWe think we've updated 'Dune' for a modern readership without dumbing it down.- Brian HerbertThere’s an unwritten compact between you and the reader. If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned money(energy) for your book, you owe that person some entertainment and as much more as you can give. - Frank Herbert

And here's a peer-reviewed article from the Journal of Engineering Mechanics http://www-math.mit.edu/~bazant/WTC/WTC-asce.pdf. I fyou weren't sure, peer-review is how modern science is done. It supports the airplane-crash hypothesis for the fall of the towers; i.e. the official story.

I'm extremely familiar w/the debunking911 site, it's full of great information,facts & opinions ... it is itself, tho, a "conspiracy" site, and in no way answersall 9/11 questions .... yet another reason for an actual, independent investigation,if any independent actors could be found .... (maybe the Swiss ...)

I also know what "peer-reviewed" means ...

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

I posted that while semi-bourbon drunk just to throw James Filesinto the thread, along with the tanglewooch of hard facts & bullshitthat is the David Icke site ... but if'n y'all wanna get into the JFK-thing,I'm down for that ...(separate thread, of course, this'n here's for the srs bizns of 9/11)

[edit]not right now, tho ... I gotta get back to my Fallout:New Vegas;on this play-thru, I accidentally sliced an NCR major's head off w/the katana, and now all them basterd's is after me ....[/edit]

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

The controversial film “Loose Change” had built a following over the years with its conspiratorial theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On a decidedly less controversial note, Graham Putnam has uploaded a YouTube video entitled, “Luke’s Change,” which makes the humorous argument that the Skywalker family from the “Star Wars” saga actually staged the attack on the Death Star.

In a decidedly satirical tone, Putnam describes the 7-minute film as, “An examination of some questionable events and circumstances leading up to the destruction of the Death Star, through the eyes of an amateur investigative journalist within the Star Wars galaxy.“

Other than repeated references to Aldebaran rather than Alderaan, It’s a pretty humorous clip for Star Wars fans, raising such hard-hitting questions as, “What’s the likelihood that a squad of one-man attack ships, like the X-Wing, could penetrate the heavily fortified defense forces of a moon-sized battle station?”

Throughout the video, Putnam challenges the “official story” and looks at the “family connections” between Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Darth Vader that may have been behind a giant conspiracy a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And in a final nod to the many edits made to the original edition of Loose Change,” Putnam declares, “All facts in this video were based on facts. Real facts. All events, names and places that are real are real. This video exists and all the facts in it are, I swear to God, true.”

What do you think? Is the legend of the Skywalker family to be believed or is it simply the version of the story they want us to think is true?

I was quite humored by the video. In addition to the "aldebaran" naming, there are several other errors throughout and I'm not sure if they were inserted purposefully as part of the satire or were actual lapses in Putnam's knowledge. -he states that all fighter craft other than's Luke's were destroyed-Mis-identifies both Briggs Darklighter and Jek Porkins as being Wedge Antilles-shows a wrong schematic for the Millenium Falcon and also misclassifies it as a type of Correllian fighter-craft rather than a stock light freighter. (I think he shows a YT-2000 schematic instead of a YT-1300)

I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume these were intentional errors as part of the satire.

In case Sandrider should return to this thread, I have a few questions:

1) I've seen some video footage from the place crashes alleging that the planes weren't commercial airliners. But the images were very grainy and I couldn't make out the fuselage and other elements that would 'prove' they were non-commercial. Have you seen video footage that is more clear, or other evidence that the planes were military stand-ins?

2) I've heard claims that the passengers from the real commercial flights were deposited and detained at military bases during the events of 9-11. Is there any proof to this effect? Were any of those people ever found or released? Presumably locating even one of them would outright prove everything 9-11 Truthers say.

3) What is the official explanation for Larry Silverstein letting slip that WTC 7 was "pulled"?